This book has traditionally been dismissed but it's terrific - self serving but so what? It's in diary form so there is tremendous urgency and fascination as Wanger gets a movie greenlit by being high concept - Liz Taylor as Cleopatra - without ever being really sure of the story (you can spin it in all directions).
The producer gushes about Liz and Burton and Mankiewicz, is more exasperated on Spyrous Skouros.
Looking back it's kind of scary how many mistakes were bad luck and understandable - makes sense they'd hold out for Liz, and to film in England where they had a deal with Rank, and to cast Peter Finch and Stephen Boyd, and even to use Robert Mamoulian, and to try to rewrite the script, and not their fault she got sick, but that meant she won an Oscar which made her invaluable. And a lot of things they did were to make the movie better, like hire Mankiewicz. Other things more avoidable - the movie is basically people talking they could have cut a lot of spectacle (yet they had to add some).
Some things I didn't know like Taylor recommended Peter Finch, and they went after Laurence Olivier first for Caesar.
Fun to read little asides like Wagner commenting that he hadn't dealt well with being cheated on.
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